Dallas’ Scottie Scheffler did it all in 2024 while others watched, admired

Early Sunday afternoon, it was apparent that the only thing missing from Scottie Scheffler’s picture-perfect golf game was a flair for the dramatic. Starting the day with a five-shot lead at the Tour Championship in Atlanta, he quickly turned that into seven strokes after the first two holes.
But then came the drama. At first, just the smallest sign of cracks before the best golfer on the planet hit the worst shot of the day — a shank out of a green-side bunker at the easy birdie 8th hole that Scheffler turned into a bogey. The relentlessly steady Collin Morikawa was suddenly two shots behind. Could a collapse reminiscent of 2022 when Scheffler lost a six-stroke lead to Rory McIlroy on the final round of the FedEx Cup be in the mix?
Not on your life.
Scheffler made exquisite birdies on the next three holes and the rest of it was simply playing out the string as the 28-year-old from Dallas won the Tour Championship by four strokes to finish one of the greatest golf seasons of all time. It was Scheffler’s seventh PGA Tour victory which includes the Masters and the Players Championship but does not include winning Olympic Gold a month ago in Paris.
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Along the way Scheffler became the first player since anyone started keeping stats to lead the PGA Tour in both Greens in Regulation (73 percent) and Putting Strokes average per hole (1.69). In 2000, when Tiger Woods had the best season any of us can remember while winning the U.S. Open by 15, the British Open by eight and the PGA Championship, he led in hitting greens but finished second to Brad Faxon in the putting category. Simply put, if you’re getting to the green the quickest and taking the fewest putts, you are going to be nearly impossible to beat, and that’s what Tour players encountered going up against Scheffler in 2024.
Now factor in the format for the Tour Championship which gives the player having the best season in FedEx points a lead of anywhere from two to 10 strokes on the rest of the field. Scheffler is not accustomed to receiving strokes. He mentioned earlier this week that when he competes for fun in Dallas, he plays to a Plus-7 — meaning if you are a scratch golfer with a 0 handicap, Scottie is giving you strokes on seven holes.
Well, this week Morikawa was spotting him six and Sahith Theegala was giving him seven. They both played incredible golf as Morikawa shot 22 under for four rounds to finish at -26 while Theegala shot 21 under to finish at -24. Starting at -10, Scheffler put 20 under on his four scorecards to finish at -30, and that’s not to say that his two closest competitors would have beaten him. Scheffler spent the back nine Sunday with either a four- or five-shot lead and wasn’t exactly playing for birdie on the par-5 18th as he coasted to the Tour Championship title.
The magical golf we saw almost a decade ago from Dallas’ Jordan Spieth (who recently underwent wrist surgery after a lost season) was never going to last. He drained 20-foot putts for a longer stretch than anyone in memory, but his swing was never the best on the Tour. Scheffler’s is — yes, even with those dancing feet on his drives — and his putting is superior to his reputation on the greens. He might be the best chipper of all time (save for that wayward hosel-shank out of the sand on 8).
In addition to setting a Tour record with a scoring average of 68.0, Scheffler ranked No. 1 in approaches from 50-100 yards, from 100-125 yards and 125-150 yards. So it’s hard to design or even conceive of a golf course where Scheffler can’t win. You have to think a number of major championships and a few dozen more victories lie ahead, but it’s possible Scheffler never tops 2024.
”Look, he has every shot,’’ Morikawa said. “He never gets fazed. He shanked one, he legitimately shanked one on 8, and he came back with three straight birdies after that. Six shots was hard (to overcome) against the best player in the world. I love seeing Scottie win, I’ve watched him do it for a long time.’’
And the likelihood of us watching another golfer win The Masters, the Players Championship, the Tour Championship and Olympic gold in a calendar year has to be incredibly small. Just to throw some more variables into the mix, Scheffler became a father and “did pushups in jail” (with charges quickly dismissed) to boot. No one has ever had a year quite like this.
Twitter/X: @TimCowlishaw
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